Navigator: Kondo Mania

Hello, friends!

I’m not sure if you’re up to date with this Marie Kondo phenomenon; if not, let me catch you up. Marie is a Japanese woman who wrote the best-selling book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, which talks about, well, tidying up. In a new Netflix reality show, she goes into American homes and helps families transform their clutter into cleanliness. Now, I haven’t got too far into the series, but the gist of her philosophy, which draws from the Japanese Shinto religion, is that one shouldn’t keep anything in one’s home that doesn’t “spark joy.” The show has its champions and its critics, but it has got me thinking about my relationship to stuff.